Why Your Team Won’t Win the Big 12: Football Edition

The Big 12 football season is about to get underway. The smell of nachos is in the air and, for the first time ever in Lubbock, the crisp refreshing smell of overpriced light beer tall boys accompanies the hint of jalapeno. As your favorite Big 12 team saunters toward the starting line this week full of hope, full of optimism, hope springs eternal.

It's too bad that in the Big 12 there's only one true champion.

In that spirit, I'd like to take a minute to just go ahead and pop everybody's championship hopes bubble. I mean, 9 teams will end 2019 without hoisting that big Big 12 Championship trophy that Lincoln Riley has been hoarding like Gollum ever since he got to Norman. That's not to say it's guaranteed that he'll be hoisting another glass ball at the end of this season. Oklahoma's new QB Transfer isn't a Heisman trophy candidate and they couldn't possibly go 5 for 5 right?

We'll get back to Oklahoma in a minute, but before we get to the defending champs I'll go through the league from least likely to most likely to win a Big 12 Championship. In each write up I'll give you the biggest reason that your team will NOT win a Big 12 Championship in 2019.

KANSAS

WEST VIRGINIA

WVU lost a starting QB. The WR corps. The best lineman on both sides of the ball. The best LB. The Safeties. Should I go on? Yes? They have to replace a successful coach and have a transfer from Oklahoma that won the job QB over Jarret Doege, yes that Doege, and the kid who was already in Morgantown. Did I mention the new head coach was Neal Brown the former Texas Tech Tuberville Era OC? I'm sure that will work out well in year one.

KANSAS STATE

Bill Snyder is gone. I'll wait until ANYONE not named Bill Snyder wins at Kansas State before I back them in the preseason.

TCU

The defense will be pretty good but, Alex Delton was named the starting QB.

TEXAS TECH

A Big 12 team executing a coaching change where they fired the Prodigal Son returning home to fizzled fanfare after a string of disappointing seasons and hiring a first time Power-5 head coach winning the programs first ever Big 12 Championship would be a hell of a story. Seems like a long shot.

BAYLOR

Baylor gets rocked by big plays. There are a lot of offenses that can generate big plays in the Big 12. Is Baylor good enough for a bowl game. Sure, but don't expect to achieve that 13th data point in Waco.

OKLAHOMA STATE

I respect Coach Gundy but his team is a lot like his mullet. It looks good but it can't win a Big 12 Championship without an elite player at QB and he's got a RS freshman that couldn't beat out a transfer from Hawaii. That mullet though.

IOWA STATE

Are David Montgomery and Hakeem Butler still there? No? Ok, just checking. I'd personally love to see a Big 12 Champion that averaged less than 30 points per game win the Big 12, but I'd also love to see a service that delivers chicken wings through a hole in your ceiling.

TEXAS

Texas is really young.

Hold on that can't be it... I wish I had more. How about this: Texas will be SIGNIFICANTLY worse on third down this season without Lil' Jordan Humphrey and if they run Sam Ehlinger into the ground Lamar HS Legend Shane Buechele isn't there to bail them out anymore.

OKLAHOMA

The Sooners have won the last four of these bad boys. Can Jalen Hurts take another lap on the Lincoln track and go for the Heisman 3-peat? Not likely. What does Oklahoma crashing back to earth offensively look like? If the defense is as bad as last year it looks like 8-4 and a selection to the Texas Bowl. Sure, it's the worst case scenario but the Sooners are also replacing four offensive linemen and a there isn't a Stoops on the coaching staff anymore. Wait, that last one is a positive. Scratch that one.

There is definitive proof that every team is fallible. One of these teams will prove me wrong, but I'm guaranteed to go 9 for 10 so I don't really care.